FRANKLIN, Tenn. (November 6, 2014) – The following statement can be attributed to David Fowler, the President of The Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT):

I applaud the Tennessee Court of Appeals for its decision dismissing the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Equal Access to Intrastate Commerce Act, also known as House Bill 600. In a day when cultural winds have driven some courts to issue politically correct decisions, the Court of Appeals stuck to the facts and the law.

The Court rightly noted that the state has authority to determine that civil rights laws should apply uniformly across the state. As the Court noted, those who advocate for special legal protections based on their sexual behaviors have not been precluded from persuading the people of this state of their need for those protections. And the court rightly recognized that those kinds of policy decisions are committed under our form of government to the legislature, not the judiciary.

At a time when we needed the economy to grow, our legislators did the right thing in passing the Act. They understood that the creation of desperately needed new jobs required an expansion of existing businesses and that the prospect of a patchwork of different local laws across the state would be a hindrance to that expansion.

The Family Action Council of Tennessee, which Fowler heads, was formed in 2006 by a group of citizens concerned about the growing negative impact of public policies on the family. FACT’s mission is to equip Tennesseans and their elected officials to effectively promote and defend a culture that values the traditional family, for the sake of the common good.